Picture Butte Maple Estates bylaw to be rescinded in 2020

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Sunny South News

Town has information they need to not implement bylaw

By Nikki Jamieson
Sunny South News

Picture Butte town council plans to rescind the Maple Estate bylaw in early 2020.

During their regular Dec. 16 meeting, council heard from administration and Dan Chronik, the owner of the Maple Estates Mobile Home Park, that the town had received all the information they needed regarding the manufactured homes in the park.

The purpose of the proposed bylaw 874-18 — the Maple Estates bylaw — was to allow the town to identify the owner of Maple Estates Mobile Home Park manufactured home community as the assessed person for designated manufactured homes. Administration had felt this was needed because the town had been having issues collecting taxes on manufactured homes in the park dating back years.

The bylaw was passed in late 2018, and would come into effect in 2020. However, when the bylaw was passed council had also asked administration to bring the matter back before the end of 2019, to see if there was a possibility to rescind the bylaw if they received the necessary information.

CAO Keith Davis said that they have received the needed information from Chronik, but their concern was the historic reporting practices that caused the issue in the first place, and suggested including reporting processes in a new bylaw, along with penalties if the information the town needed for tax notices wasn’t there or incorrect.

Coun. Teresa Feist said she liked administration’s suggestion of drafting up a new bylaw to ensure that “everything stays in place”, and if that was done, she’ll be in support of rescinding bylaw 874-18. Picture Butte Mayor Cathy Moore agreed with Feist.

“When we did the first bylaw, we did it so (Chronik) would do all of the work, and he did it. We asked him to come forward with all of the information, and that’s what he did,” said Moore. “So I feel that we need to rescind that bylaw.”

To rescind bylaw 874-18, a rescinding bylaw would need to be created and passed by council. The town will also need to advertise the rescinding bylaw. The rescinding bylaw would be present in the new year.

Council unanimously passed a motion to reconsider bylaw 874-18 and direct administration to draft a rescinding bylaw for bylaw 874-18.